Perhaps they have changed...

I have gone through two sets of these tuners on the same guitar. They work wonderfully in the beginning but at some point the very poor machining and design rears its very ugly head. There is so much slop between the worm drive and gear that it slips. It makes a horrible sound and the string will suddenly drop about 9 whole steps. Hopefully they have changed something as this happened in the last 5 years, twice. All I know is I will not buy them anymore. I will pony up and get some actual nice tuners like the Waverly machines sold here. It is sad because grover has been quality for me in the past but this one missed the mark big time. Utter junk in my opinion. Stew-mac has replaced this set for me already but I am giving up before I have to do this the third time. I have a mix of ones that work and ones that do not. Seems like a few times a year I have to go through and change some because they no longer work. I am getting really tired of that. The short of this, save your money, you get what you pay for. Buy something else.

Bushings

If, like me, you are converting from closed-back Gotoh/Grover/Schaller to these open-back styles, you need to order wider bushings ("tuner parts" section on Stew-Mac). I WISH Stew-Mac would put a caveat in the description of these tuners...not everyone measures before buying, or has luthier skills. I assumed it was a drop-in replacement, and now I'm stuck with another $20 in international shipping for a 10 dollar part. I made a temporary fit with teflon tape, but it is SO not cool on a $4,000 guitar.

BUT...these are smooth and pretty tuners on my customized HD 28. The 25 year old Schallers stripped a gear, and I was only too happy to upgrade to a retro open-back.

Photo attached...extra points if you can see my pyjamas in the shiny knobs!